E 



Class .. 

GopyrigM? 

COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



KATERI 

FROM A PAINTING BY HER PASTOR CHAUCETIERE 
ONLY AUTHENTIC PORTRAIT EXTANT OF AN INDIAN MAIDEN OF THAT TIME 

( 1656-1 680 ) 



KATERI 

CATHARINE TEGAKWITHA 

LILY OF THE MOHAWKS 



by 

John J, Wynne, S. J. 



1922 

Auriesville 
New York 



The sources of information contained in these 
pages are the spiritual directors of Catharine, 
Fathers Cholonec and Chaucetiere; the historians 
Charlevoix and Chateaubriand; the Sulpitian pas- 
tor of Lachine, the village near hers, Pere Remy ; the 
late Oblate pastor of her own village, Caughnawaga, 
Pere Bur tin; Father Devine, S.J., of Montreal, and 
the Life of Catharine by Miss Walworth. 



In accordance with the Decree of Urban VIII, the 
ivords Martyr, Confessor, Virgin, Miracle in these 
pages are used without any thought of anticipating 
the decisions of the Church in regard to the holiness 
of the persons mentioned. 



Nihil Obstat, Arthur J. Scanlan, D.D., Censor 
Imprimatur, ^Patrick J. Hayes, Archbishop of New York 




Permissu Superiorura 



Copyright, 1922 
The Shrine of Our Lady of Martyrs 
Auriesville, New York 



NpV 29 "22 



©C1AG92150 , 



KATERI TEGAKWITHA 



ORPHAN AND PAGAN. 
ATHARINE, or Kateri, Tegakwitha was, 



born in 1656 in the Mohawk Indian vilr 



lage, or castle, Gaudaouaghe, or Osserne- 
non, which is now Auriesville, situated in the 
town of Glen, Montgomery County, New York, 
on the south bank of the river, about seven miles 
west of Amsterdam and four miles from the 
county seat, Fonda. 

Her father was a Mohawk, her mother a cap- 
tive Christian Algonquin, whose virtue so im- 
pressed her captor that, instead of killing or en^ 
slaving her, he made her his wife and thus a 
member of his Nation, as the divisions of the 
Iroquois were called. 

Tegakwitha, or "the one who puts things in 
order," was only four years old when smallpox 
caused the death of her mother, and soon after 
of her father and brother, sparing her own life 
but leaving the usual disfigurement and a weak- 
ness of the eyes which lasted all her life* 




1 



She was adopted by an uncle, a former chief- 
tain and still a man of consequence in the Nation. 
He took her to his cabin, because her relatives 
generally had discarded her, and, having no chil- 
dren of his own, he looked to her when grown 
up to be a help in his home, and eventually to 
bring into it a husband who would sustain him 
and his wife in their declining years. The vil- 
lage was then about a mile west of Auries Creek 
whither the Indians had moved from their plague 
stricken home. 

There were as yet no missionaries in the 
Mohawk castle. Fourteen years before, in 1642, 
Father Isaac Jogues had been a victim of torture 
and a captive there with his companion Rene 
Goupil, who was put to death for the faith that 
year. Jogues himself met a like fate there in 
1646 with Lalande, his companion. Other mis- 
sionaries had also suffered there, Bressani, 1644, 
and Poncet as late as 1653, three years before 
Kateri's birth. These very Iroquois had destroyed 
the Huron villages in Canada (1647-1649) tor- 
turing and killing among others Fathers Bre- 
beuf, Lalemant, Daniel, Garnier and Chabanel. 
The Iroquois were the sworn enemies of the 
French, and especially of the priests. Not until 
de Tracy had burned their villages in 1666, did 
they sue for peace and beg for Black Robes, as 
they called the missionaries, to come and dwell 
among them. Fathers Fremin, Bruyas and 
Pierren came in 1667. Gaudaouaghe then stood 
on the north bank of the river overlooking the 
present site of Fonda. 

Kateri was just eleven years old, still unbap- 
2 



tised. She had, however, already been through 
her baptism of fire, for her uncle and aunts had 
tried to force and even deceive her into marriage, 
going so far as to introduce the young brave into 
their cabin. Kateri knowing that by the custom 
of her people, even to sit next to him was to con- 
sent to become his bride, at once left the cabin 
and refused to return until he had left. Though 
a dependent, she was in no sense servile. Young 
as she was when her mother died, she had learned 
something of religion and prayer. She could 
therefore take part in the reception of the mis- 
sionaries and appreciate better than others the 
meaning of their coming, especially as they were 
lodged in the cabin which her uncle occupied with 
other families, according to Iroquois custom. 

The Iroquois regarded themselves as super- 
men among all other Indians. They were par- 
ticularly proud of their cabins and were known 
by other tribes as Cabin Indians. Even when 
hunting, part of the woman's task w r as to carry 
the portable makings of a cabin and put them 
together. These dwellings were constructed 
somewhat on the principle of a modern apart- 
ment house with accommodations for from five 
to twenty families, sometimes more. They va- 
ried in size, being usually about 35 feet in length, 
breadth and height; often as long as 140 feet, 
and sometimes exceeding 500 feet. A passage 
way in the centre divided the compartments on 
either side and served for fireplaces. Adults 
slept on mats placed on the ground or on a low 
platform, the younger members of the family 
sleeping on an upper tier. For privacy, such 

3 



as it was, strips of bark or skin were used. They 
were not all rude ; on the contrary, some of them 
were neatly thatched with bark, and their crev- 
ices were covered with strips of skins. 

While the missionaries remained with Kateri's 
uncle, she could observe them at prayer, listen 
to their pious conversations, notice their gentle 
and reverent demeanor, all of which, as she used 
to recall in later life, were her first inspirations 
to the love of God. She longed to speak with 
them, but naturally shy, and fearful of arousing 
the anger of her uncle against the missionaries 
she had to let their brief visit pass without open- 
ing to them the secret wishes of her heart. 

There were many Christians in the village, 
mostly Huron and Algonquin captives, and gradu- 
ally Father Fremin assembled them together for 
instruction and prayer. He used to engage the 
more fervent to collect the others. He consid- 
ered it wiser to confirm these in their faith than 
to attempt to make new converts, though he did 
not neglect this, especially among those who 
were old or dangerously ill. Many; sought bap- 
tism but they were kept on a long probation to 
make sure of their constancy among a people 
who lived in lust, believed in magic and sorcery, 
and indulged in orgies of intemperance on strong 
liquors procured from the Dutch and later from 
the English at Fort Orange or Albany. Still 
Pierron baptised 84, not a small number of the 
400 souls in the village, many of whom were al- 
ready Christian. He aimed at creating a general 
sentiment in favor of religion and a sincere de- 
sire for its ministrations. He soon succeeded in 

4 



getting even pagan Indians to help build chapels, 
one in each mission. In these he had impressive 
ceremonies. Visiting each of the three villages 
every three days, he kept the faithful on the 
alert studying the mysteries of faith. As they 
were accustomed to gambling, he invented a 
game of cards "From point to point" (from birth 
to eternity) the cards teaching the command- 
ments, the sacraments, the virtues, the deadly 
vices, death, heaven, hell, judgment. Every 
variety of ministry fell to his lot, even that of 
army chaplain. Though the Iroquois had ceased 
for a time to be aggressive, they were not im- 
mune from the enemy's attack. Once the Mo- 
hicans attempted to take the village. Pierron 
during the engagement was in the front rank 
with his Christian warriors. After the enemy 
was repulsed he devoted himself to the fifty cap- 
tives, all of whom sought baptism before they 
were put to death. Father Boniface, who suc- 
ceeded him in 1670, followed his methods and 
gave them definite form. 

Father Pierron could paint well enough to 
represent things graphically. Once when some 
stubborn Indians put their fingers into their 
ears so as not to hear him, he drew a picture of 
a demon making a dying woman put her fingers 
into her ears so as not to hear the priest. After 
that the practice stopped. He knew the charm 
of music for these savages, especially when their 
own children sang the hymns after morning and 
evening service over which he presided daily. 
He relied more on a Christmas crib than on his 
own words to appeal to the pagan Indians. 

5 



The growing Tegakwitha lost no opportunity 
of attending the instructions and devotions to 
which the unbaptised Indians were admitted, but 
as her uncle gradually became opposed to the 
missionaries, her liberty in this respect was re- 
stricted and she had to content herself with 
longing for the time when she could freely be- 
come a Christian. So things went on until in 
1675, when she was nineteen years old, Father 
James de Lamberville came to succeed Father 
Boniface who had died the year before. 

Meanwhile if she had to witness many scandals 
they made less impression on her precisely be- 
cause they were so common. The impressive 
thing for one of her disposition was the occa- 
sional display of heroic virtue among those who 
had been for some time Christian or who were 
moved to become so, especially w T hen the hand of 
Providence w r as clear in such instances. She 
must have witnessed the fervor of an Indian 
squaw attending the instructions, even summon- 
ing others to attend them, craving for baptism, 
insisting that her little son was worthy of the 
sacrament if she was not, soon after receiving 
it losing both husband and son by illness, driven 
into illness herself by the superstitious Indians, 
who blamed her for having brought on all these 
afflictions by being baptised, and yet recovering 
and holding her ground as a pious Christian. 

That was a thrilling scene for the young girl 
before all the village when a captive woman of 
the Loups was brought in scalped and dying. 
There beside her was an old hag, like a sentinel 
of the devil, writes the missionary, encouraging 

6 



her to ignore his ministrations. A third time 
he had come to exhort the victim, but to no avail. 
Still a fourth time he comes to see her, and this 
time she changes utterly and receives baptism 
from him. 

Catharine knew the chief who abandoned his 
wife six months after she became a Christian. 
She felt for the young woman when her only 
consolation, a baby daughter, died. She knew 
how to sympathise with her when the pagan 
Indians taunted her for adopting the Prayer, 
as the Faith was called. Just then, however, 
the husband himself returns a devout believer. 
He had visited the Indian village in Canada 
where the missionaries were gathering together 
the baptised Indians from many tribes so that 
they might live unmolested by their tormentors. 
Now he is back to rejoin his wife and to lead 
her away from the abominations of an idolatrous 
village. Catharine could see dimly at least the 
hand of Providence in all this. How her heart 
must have sunk within her when she saw this 
man depart followed by numbers of Christians 
whom she longed to imitate and follow! 

With reason did she grieve. The departure 
made her feel more keenly that she was not yet 
one of them. It also embittered her uncle, who 
blamed the missionaries for diminishing his Na- 
tion and made it harder for Catharine to do as 
she desired. They had to avoid her cabin. She 
could not frequent, their instructions. Even 
though she might have braved her uncle's indig- 
nation, she did not wish to rouse him to open 
hostility with Father de Lamberville. 

7 



For eight years Fremin, Pierron, Boniface and 
now de Lamberville had been working at Gau- 
daouaghe. All that time the young girl had been 
longing to become a Christian. She had been 
living on baptism by desire. Her own shyness 
and reserve, the antipathy of her uncle toward 
the missionaries, her frequent absences in the 
corn fields or on the hunt, the preoccupation of 
the missionaries themselves, their going and 
coming from one village to another, and as in 
Boniface's case, to and from the new Christian 
Indian village at Caughnawaga on the St. Law- 
rence, their special attention to Indians who were 
already Christian, their caution in admitting to 
the Faith men and women who were steeped in 
idolatry, by nature inconstant, and often mor- 
ally corrupt — all this explains why Tegakwitha's 
longings were all this time unfulfilled. 

What we call chance is really divine arrange- 
ment. The so-called chance that made de 
Lamberville one day enter the cabin of Kateri 
which he had passed by many a time was really 
God's way of answering her prayer. Though 
usually out working in the fields, she was in that 
day suffering from her eyes, and a very sore 
leg. Two women were visiting her, but she 
poured out her heart to the priest and begged 
for baptism. To no avail he warned her of the 
opposition of her relatives. She had made up 
her mind, and her courage and firmness carried 
the day. She was to continue at the instruction 
and soon she would be baptised. 



8 



CHRISTIAN AND EXILE. 

Easter Sunday, 1676, was a gala day at 
Gaudaouaghe. De Lamberville regarded it as the 
most beautiful day in his apostolic career. The 
Christian Indians saw in it a triumph, that one 
whom all revered as exceptionally modest, charit- 
able, industrious and prayerful, should now be 
admitted to dignify their own ranks. The pagans 
for once forgot their animosity to the Faith and 
attended the ceremony. The chapel was a revel 
of decoration, the sanctuary carpeted with fur of 
beaver, bear, fox and wildcat, the walls hung 
with beaded necklaces, bracelets, wampum and 
trinkets used to adorn the hair. Catharine, as 
the missionary named her when pouring the sav- 
ing waters, was the ornament that riveted the 
attention of all by her modesty, peace, piety and 
rapture. She had already won admiration and 
reverence. That day she won, as she walked to 
the chapel under the avenue of trees her tribes- 
men had planted purposely for the occasion, a 
veneration w T hich has never ceased. 

Catharine did not need to go to the Christian 
village in Canada to live apart from the pagan 
practises of her people, their riotous festivals, 
superstitions, dances, and other assemblies of 
drunkenness, license and impiety. These she had 
instinctively avoided all along. Instead she was 
frequently in the chapel and, when not engaged 
in errands of charity, diligently at work in her 
cabin, or if need be employed in the woods or 
fields, but always with her mind on divine things. 
Because her conduct was a rebuke to the dissi- 

9 



pated young men and women of the village they 
did not spare her. They even laid snares for 
her chastity, but only to their own confusion. 
Her cabin companions reproached her with idle- 
ness, and deprived her of food. Opposition 
helped her to realise her dependence on God. 
When kept by illness in her cabin, the rosary 
was her constant companion. 

The persecution continued and grew violent. 
She became the marked woman of the village, 
for drunkard and libertines to insult. Children 
taunted her and covered her with mud. Her 
uncle joined with her tormentors. A young 
savage followed her into her cabin threatening 
her with his hatchet if she would not renounce 
the Faith, to be told : You may take my life, but 
not my faith. An aunt seized on a flimsy pre- 
text to impugn her chastity. She even insinu- 
ated that Catharine had sacrificed her honor 
during the hunt. Fortunately de Lamberville, 
to whom she complained, knew how commonly 
the guilty party is not the accused but the ac- 
cuser, and could soon disprove the story and put 
the accuser to shame. 

All things conspire for the welfare of those 
who love God. Had Catharine not suffered, de 
Lamberville would have treated her as a fervent 
but ordinary neophyte. Witnessing her heroism, 
he felt constrained to teach her the way of the 
counsels of Christ. Up to this she had been so 
far as any one can be, self-taught, or self-made, 
as we say, in the ways of grace. Now she was 
to have the special guidance of one who practised 
as well as preached heroic virtue. The more she 

10 



learned of the heights to which one might rise 
in the love of God and devotion to her neighbor, 
of prayer, and self-sacrifice, the more she yearned 
to live where her environment as well as her 
inclination would enable her to give herself un- 
reservedly to the service of God and her own 
people. As visitors would come occasionally 
from the Christian village which the mission- 
aries had established in Canada and tell of the 
fervor and devotion that flourished there, Cath- 
arine longed to go there to practise her faith 
and cultivate virtue in peace. The village then 
was at La Prairie, across the St. Lawrence from 
Montreal, where French and Indian Christians 
lived together. 

Youth is fond of the day dream, and the young 
Indians usually found material for dreams in the 
hunt, the fishery, the trading excursion, the start 
or return of the nation's warriors when hostil- 
ities were on. At Gaudaouaghie a change had 
lately come over the spirit of some of the dream- 
ers. They had witnessed numbers leave the 
cabin, some of them chiefs of the tribe, to begin 
life over on new soil and with altered surround- 
ings. They had seen some of these return and 
heard them recount what to Mohawk imagina- 
tion must have seemed like life in the happy 
hunting ground, where there was no laziness, no 
cruelty, no beastliness, no torture, no demoniacal 
spell or witchcraft, no drunkenness, no licen- 
tiousness, no mad orgy, but instead industry, 
kindliness, decency, sobriety, chastity and inno- 
cent pleasures. 

In the loneliness of her cabin Kateri would 
11 



revel in the very thought of this celestial para- 
dise. The more her craving for religion grew, 
and the more she was impeded or persecuted in 
her quest for it, the more she would naturally 
long for the haven where she could serve God 
with the liberty of His children. The missionar- 
ies themselves had dreamed of such a refuge for 
their Christian Indians years before they could 
establish one. Meantime they tried various 
methods of withdrawing the savages from their 
vices and superstitions. They had encouraged 
French families to raise Indians boys and girls 
in their homes; they had the nuns take young 
maidens in their schools ; they had induced adults 
to live away from their own people and near 
the French settlements, so as to civilize at the 
same time that they Christianised them. All 
this was not enough. It could benefit only a few 
and it had no element of permanence. Even 
when they had acquired a site suitable for an 
exclusively Christian Indian settlement, they 
could not decide how to get any to come there 
and stay for any length of time. They were 
using the place as a rest resort for worn out 
missionaries when again an apparent chance, 
which proved to be a divine arrangement, 
brought about what they desired. 

An Oneida Pierre Tonsohoten, Christian at 
heart, with his wife Gandeakteua, her mother, 
brother-in-law and five friends of his tribe ac- 
companied the Jesuit lay assistant Charles 
Boquet to Montreal, partly to act as guide, partly 
to obtain remedies for rheumatism he needed. 
On witnessing the lives of the Christians at Mon- 

12 



treal, they were so entranced that they forgot all 
about the Iroquois country whence they came. 
Father Raffeix suggested that instead of return- 
ing to their homes they should live at St. Francis 
Xavier's, as the missionaries' retreat was then 
called. There they spent the winter 1667-68 
under instruction, and in the following summer 
they went down to Quebec all to receive baptism 
from Bishop Laval, except Tonsohoten who was 
baptised some years later. This was the begin- 
ning of a religious settlement which has lasted 
to our day. By this time the Indians had their 
own village four miles above La Prairie near 
the Lachine Rapids. 

Reports of this new venture captivated the 
imagination of the Indians everywhere. At- 
tracted by curiosity many who were returning 
from hunt or fishery stopped aside to see what 
the new abode was like, and they were so satis- 
fied that they remained there, or went home to 
urge their friends to go there. Christians from 
every tribe in lower Canada and what is now 
upper New York began to flock there. Never 
did gold fields lure more eager adventurers. 
Soon there were members from twenty-two 
tribes, all of them bent on living as Christians 
unmolested, many of them seeking to lead the 
Christian life in all its fulness. Tribes which 
had a respectable number like the Hurons, 
Oneidas, Algonquins, were permitted to name a 
captain or trustee to regulate the affairs of the 
ca,nton under the direction of the missionaries. 
Garonhiague, baptised Louis, with his wife 
Marie Carhio, was captain for the Oneidas. "Hot 

13 



Ashes," as he was nicknamed, was no mere po- 
litical leader. He was catechist and apostle. At 
home he instructed and exhorted his fellows, and 
explained pious pictures. He made many trips 
to the Iroquois country to tell his former tribes- 
men of the new life at St. Xavier. It was on 
one of these expeditions that he became the in- 
strument of Kateri's escape from Gaudaouaghe 
to the Christian reservation. It was no easy 
matter. Though her aunts consented, her uncle, 
who was on a political mission in Albany, on 
hearing she had left the village pursued her. On 
coming up with her guides, one a relative of 
Kateri, the other a Huron from Lorette, they 
feigned hunting whilst she hid in the thick of 
the woods, thus throwing their pursuer off the 
scent. It took them four days to reach Lake 
George, or Holy Sacrament, as Jogues had named 
it thirty years before. There they found the 
canoe of Hot Ashes. To cross this lake, and 
the longer one named after Champlain, and then 
reach the St. Lawrence, was a smart week's jour- 
ney, but they made it without fear of hindrances 
with the prospect of a blissful biding place 
ahead, in the midst of the loveliest of seasons, the 
Indian Summer of 1677. 



14 



THE FLOWER IN BLOOM. 

Thus read the letter of Father de Lamberville 
introducing Kateri to Father Cholonec, who with 
Fathers Fremin, and Chauchetiere, was then in 
charge of the mission: "Catharine Tegakwitha 
is going to live at the Sault. Will you kindly un- 
dertake to direct her? You will soon know what 
a treasure we have sent you. Guard it well! 
May it profit in your hands, for the glory of God 
and the salvation of a soul that is certainly very 
dear to Him." 

Their first care was to lodge her with a pious 
family and naturally they selected the cabin of 
the one who had guided her from her home on 
the Mohawk, her brother-in-law as she called 
him. His kindness was to bring him and his 
family many graces. In the cabin was an elder- 
ly woman Anastasie Tegonhatsiongo, who was 
like a mother to Kateri. She devoted her time 
to preparing women and young girls for bap- 
tism. What an entirely new environment it was, 
far from the scandals of the pagan village, free 
from the persecution of her own household, and 
brightened with the glow of an affection which 
she had never known. Gratitude added new in- 
centive to her desire for an undivided service to 
God. She had long outgrown the disposition to 
know merely what she must avoid. Her sole 
thought now was to learn to do what was most 
pleasing to Him. The chapel became her rendez- 
vous whenever she left her cabin, from four in 
the morning when the doors opened until all the 
Masses were over, often during the day, espe- 

15 



cially in winter and the rainy season when she 
could not work in the fields, and always for night 
prayers there in the evening. On Sundays she 
spent most of the day, with the rest of the Mis- 
sion, in the chapel, at the usual Mass in the 
morning, the Rosary, and in the afternoon with 
the Confraternity of the Holy Family, and at 
Vespers. At this last devotion, instead of 
psalms, the Indians used to chant things which 
the Fathers wished them to learn, a form of 
morning prayer, a prayer for Mass, another to 
the Guardian Angel, a fourth for Faith, a fifth, 
the Commandments. 

"Prayer" was the word all these Indians used 
to express religion, the Faith, the Church and 
its teachings. They seemed to grasp that the 
essence of all religion is union, or communing 
with God especially by prayer. When at all in 
earnest they were fond of prayer, especially of 
prayer in common, and even its solitary practice 
became easy for them. In Catharine faith en- 
livened every prayer and she soon realized that 
her relation with God was personal, that love of 
Him must be the only worthy motive of all she 
did for Him, that the slightest unfaithfulness 
was unthinkable, as it was a grievous offence in 
her eyes. It was this purity of heart that led the 
missionaries to admit her to receive Holy Com- 
munion the Christmas Day after her arrival at 
St. Francis Xavier's, whereas they usually kept 
others waiting a year or more in preparation. 
After this the Eucharist became her one desire, 
and when she received it so great was her recol- 
lection, and so attractive her piety that other 

16 



Indians liked to be near her as the sight of her 
increased their own devotion. 

Winter was the hunting season for these good 
savages and the hunt lasted four months. Few 
even of the women remained at home. Out over 
the snowbound St. Law T rence and through the 
denuded woods the men tracked and killed elk, 
bear, beaver, wildcat, fox, porcupine, otter and 
seal, the women bringing home the quarry, dress- 
ing the meat, preserving the skins, setting up 
the cabins, and doing the household work. This 
was the Indians' fondest occupation and often 
an occasion of license. The missionaries had 
gradually accustomed them to follow a simple 
rule of life during the hunting season, and to 
meet daily as much as possible for prayer. They 
had calendars on birch bark marking Sundays, 
holydays and days of fasting and abstinence. 
Men were assigned to give the signal for prayer 
and to preside at it. 

Catharine accompanied her adopted sister and 
husband doing her full share of work in camp 
and cabin. Not content with the prayers said 
in common, she made her own oratory in a glade 
of evergreens carving on one of them the cross. 
Little did she imagine that her journey to and 
from this solitude w 7 as to be misconstrued by a 
woman of her own cabin who was jealous of her. 
After the hunt this woman denounced Kateri to 
the missionary who, like all men of sense, in- 
sisted on getting the story of Catharine before 
forming a conclusion. Naturally he trusted her. 
In a short time the jealous accuser, unlike so 

17 



many more civilized Christians, recognised her 
injustice and deplored it bitterly. 

It was a sharp transition from the excitements 
and irregular habits of the hunt to the services 
of Holy Week and Easter. Good Friday was 
for her a day of sorrow and a fresh inspiration 
to a life of penance. Easter Day, the anniver- 
sary of her baptism, brought her the singular 
honor of admission to the Confraternity of the 
Holy Family reserved for older and select mem- 
bers of the Mission. With her companion Anas- 
tasie, the more others regarded her as deserving, 
the more she appreciated the evil of sin, and 
sought to expiate her own crimes as she called 
them by chastising her frail body, after the ex- 
amples she read in the stories of the saints and 
of the fathers of the desert. About this time 
when felling a tree, she was struck by the fall- 
ing branches and knocked unconscious. She was 
picked up for dead but soon came to exclaiming : 
"0 Jesus, I thank thee for having succored me 
in danger." She believed that God had spared 
her life in order that she might do penance. 

This Indian village of St. Francis Xavier, 
though Eden compared with Gaudaouaghe, was 
not altogether without an occasional sinner and 
scandal. The missionaries had to fight the 
traders who were forever striving to introduce 
liquors into the cabins, for liquor would spoil 
in a day what had taken them months to accom- 
plish. The savage though viciously inclined had 
some self-control when sober: when drunk he 
was more demon than man. Not all in the vil- 
lage precincts were Christians. Some had come 

18 



there with their Christian relatives ; others were 
still awaiting baptism. Side by side therefore 
with marvelous examples of piety there were 
instances of depravity, as when on one occasion 
three young women determined to tempt some of 
the instructors of the Indians, and, failing in 
this, succeeded in misleading a young brave, until 
they were driven from the reservation. 

A certain Mary Teresa Tegaiguenta had not 
lived up to the promise of her early life. She 
had come up from the Oneidas baptised but prone 
to intemperance. In the winter of 1675 she had 
gone hunting with a party of eleven, four men, 
her husband among them, three other women, 
and three children. Game failing, they were on 
the verge of starvation when her husband fell 
ill. Deserted by the others she stayed with him 
until he died and she buried him in the snow. 
Soon after she overtook her former companions 
now unable to proceed from hunger, and all 
awaiting death. They were debating the pro- 
posal to kill and eat one of the party, but they 
wanted to know what she as a Christian would 
advise. She was afraid to answer. When she 
saw them kill and devour first one then another 
of the party, she was struck with remorse over 
her past conduct and she determined, if God 
would restore her to her people, to atone for her 
sins with due penance. With four of her friends 
she survived and reached the Mission. Straight- 
way she threw herself at the feet of the mission- 
ary repentant, begging his help to carry out her 
good resolutions. 

Soon after this woman met Kateri near the 
19 



new chapel in course of construction, and their 
chance acquaintance ripened into a fast friend- 
ship. They used to meet with another friend 
Marie Skarichions and deliberate how they might 
live holier lives. Their rendezvous was un- 
der the great cross overlooking where the river 
widens round Heron Island. The cross was 
replaced from time to time until 1900, when 
the present monument was erected. After 
Kateri's death some ornaments which she left 
were buried beneath it. At the blessing of a 
new cross in 1844, her picture adorned it. There 
then these three studied how they might retire 
by themselves, build a cabin on the island, and 
serve God as did the Sisters w 7 hom Skarichions 
and Kateri had seen at Montreal and Quebec. 
They decided to submit their design to Father 
Fremin and be guided by his advice. 

While Catharine was thus meditating a life 
of virginity, her adopted sister was planning to 
have her marry one of the young braves of the 
village. It seemed so natural that a maid whom 
any young man would be proud to marry should 
think of her future and do as others do. Indeed, 
according to the Indian way of thinking, it was 
highly proper. Kateri's manifest disregard of 
fashion in dress and ornament just at this time 
made the sister fear she was not looking out for 
her own interest. Her almost exclusive com- 
panionship with the two good women who. like 
her, were following the rule of life drawn up 
for them by Father Fremin was considered as 
singular and hurtful to her prospect in life. So 
.artful was the chief lady of the cabin in present- 

20 



ing what she considered as the obligation to en- 
ter the married state, that Kateri, not confident 
in her own powers to reply, had recourse to the 
missionary to learn from him the Christian view 
of the two modes of life in virginity and in 
marriage, only to confirm her in love for the 
former. When in her early girlhood she evaded 
the efforts of her relatives to have her marry, 
she was shunning what appeared unnatural and 
wrong to one so young. Now, however, she was 
choosing what she regarded as a distinctly better 
condition in that it left her freer to devote her 
whole soul to God's service. For a time she kept 
her secret to herself. When urged to marry, 
she made it known. To avoid further pressure, 
she sought from Father Cholonec a thing until 
then unheard of among savages, permission to 
make a vow of virginity. He bade her deliberate 
over it for three days. In good faith she agreed, 
but before an hour was up she returned to tell 
him she could not deliberate on a decision she 
had long since made and would never alter. 
Needless to say he approved her resolution. 
Soon the motherly Anastasie, who had urged her 
to marry, came to support her resolution not to 
do so. Her penitent friend Teresa had all along 
encouraged her in her high resolve. Her vow 
was made on the Feast of the Annunciation, 
March 25, 1679. 

Hunting was as much a season of sport as of 
a time for securing food and skins for trade. It 
was the outing of Indian man and woman from 
the tame enclosure of the palisade and the labor- 
ious days in the cornfields. Those who went 

21 



hunting would have plenty to eat and relish for 
it: those who remained at home must live on 
sagamite and dried fish or meat with little savor. 
Only the old and very young remained at home 
with those who were infirm. Though never ro- 
bust Catharine was not at this time infirm. 
Still she chose to remain at home in spite of the 
pressure of her relatives to accompany them. Her 
reason was that the excitement and irregular- 
ities of the hunt, though not necessarily sinful, 
tended to distract her thoughts and kept her 
away from what she had now come to regard as 
the very center and substance of her life, the 
chapel and her Savior ever present in its taber- 
nacle. There she knelt close to the altar every 
morning long before sunrise waiting for the 
Mass, her blue cloak wrapped about her body 
and serving as a hood modestly to conceal her 
features. Thither she went five times daily to 
make her acts of faith, contrition, humility, 
resignation, and to conclude with a rosary. Urge 
her to leave her post and stay near the fire, she 
would do so only for a moment, pleading, in that 
rigorous climate, she did not suffer cold. It 
would have been more precise to say she did not 
advert to the suffering. Her mind was so intent 
on the altar ; the/ altar was for her a Calvary ; the 
sufferings she thought of were her Lord's, not 
her own. Indeed, so vividly did she realise what 
He had suffered, she felt it natural that she 
should suffer, so natural that she went out of her 
way to seek suffering and to experience it even 
to excess. 

For some of Kateri's austerities and penances 
22 



were so excessive that her spiritual adviser had 
to forbid them. He admired her courage, but 
he knew that virtue never goes to extremes. The 
refinement of torture that her tribesmen used to 
inflict on a captive enemy, she inflicted on herself. 
Hard labor, fasting, watching counted for naught 
with her; the lash and pointed metal cincture 
she applied to her weak body regularly; she 
even branded herself with hot iron and w r alked 
barefoot in the snows of winter; when she at 
length began to put hot coals between her toes 
and sleep three successive nights in the brambles 
she had found in the woods, her strength gave 
way, her secret was discovered, and Father 
Cholonec bade her moderate her eagerness to 
imitate the saints in rigorous penances that 
were altogether beyond her powers. About this 
time others in the village besides herself prac- 
tised self-torture to such an extent that the 
chronicler Chauchetiere actually recorded the fact 
as due to the influence of the evil one, and as 
leading to a fanaticism which the missionaries 
had to check particularly after the death of Cath- 
arine when it began to exceed all bounds. 

Half measures had no place in Catharine's 
life. Whatever she did was whole hearted and, 
when occasion offered, heroic. With an uncle 
chief in the village of her youth, she might have 
been foremost among its growing maidens, in 
dress, in common esteem, in social favor such as 
it was. Instead she kept out of notice and re- 
sented even ordinary attention. It required 
spirit to decline that marriage which was well 
nigh forced on her when scarcely ten years old. 

23 



It required meekness to stand the taunts and 
jeers she had to bear for this. It required still 
more courage to leave her home and people risk- 
ing pursuit by her uncle, who would have spared 
no one's life to recover her. Frail as she was 
and often ill, only a will of adamant could sup- 
port her in her incessant toil on the hunt, in the 
fields, within the cabin. Only an extraordinary 
light from heaven and an exceptional influence 
of divine grace could have moved her to seek a 
perfection far in advance of what her spiritual 
advisers had thought of recommending to her, 
especially when without suggestion from them 
she sought permission to consecrate her life to 
God in virginity. 



24 



FRAGRANCE. 

The inhabitants of the village were absent 
when Kateri took her last illness. It was the 
hunting season. For two months she suffered 
violent and weakening stomach pains, and she 
lay in her cabin not altogether neglected, but 
not as well cared for as she would have been 
were the people at home. She little heeded the 
lack of attention so long as she could enjoy the 
solitude and the opportunity it gave her for 
prayer. Those who came to visit her entered 
her cabin as if it was a sanctuary. They came 
because they felt it was a grace to witness her 
patience and hear her speak of holy things. 
When the sickness became fatal in Holy Week 
1680, the missionaries made an exception in her 
favor by carrying the Viaticum to her cabin in- 
stead of having her brought to the chapel to re- 
ceive it as was customary. The procession from 
chapel to cabin was a memorable affair, not un- 
like the ceremony which marked the day of her 
baptism. This was Tuesday, in the Holy Week 
of 1680. Watchers were assigned to remain with 
her until her death, which occurred the following 
day, April 17, when she was still fully conscious, 
clasping her crucifix and repeating: "Jesus, I 
love You." 

Her death w T as the occasion of extraordinary 
religious manifestations. It was apparent that 
all regarded her as a saint. Her mat, blanket 
and crucifix were regarded as sacred relics. 
Prayers were offered to her. It was suggested 
that she be buried not in the cemetery but in the 

25 



chapel. Father Cholonec considered this inad- 
visable much as he believed her worthy of the 
distinction. The Christians from the neighbor- 
ing village at Laprairie came to the funeral. 
From the moment of her burial men, women and 
children formed the custom of coming to pray at 
her grave. The French came there as well as 
the Indians. Soon a cross was erected over it 
like the one near which she used to pray on the 
banks of the St. Lawrence. Novenas were made 
and masses offered in her honor. 

Very soon it became known that prayers to 
her were answered in a remarkable manner. 
She appeared twice to Father Chauchetiere, the 
second time bidding him: Look and do accord- 
ing to the model. The model as he interpreted 
it was Catharine herself and accordingly he 
painted her image, the only picture extant of an 
Indian maiden of that day. When the Governor 
of Canada, M. de Champigny was cured of throat 
trouble of two years' standing, after praying at 
Catharine's grave, his wife had many copies of 
this image made for distribution in France and 
among the Indians. Many were the favors 
granted from heaven by its pious use. Cures 
through her intercession became so frequent that 
Father Cholonec ceased to record them. M. de 
la Columbiere, Canon of the Cathedral Church 
in Quebec, brother of the famous Father de la 
Colombiere, director of Saint Margaret Mary, 
was cured of slow fever and bleeding which had 
lasted six months. Pere Remy of St. Sulpice, 
Cure of Lachine parish, was disposed to ques- 
tion the miraculous favors granted through 

26 



Catharine's intercession; but when one of his 
parishioners came to have him offer a Mass of 
thanksgiving, for favors obtained through the 
Indian Maiden, he felt moved to invoke her to 
bring about his own cure from deafness and 
when his prayer was heard, out of gratitude he 
wrote her life. 

Father Cholonec had at first the same attitude 
as Remy, but when he witnessed the cure of 
Claude Caron by the use of Catharine's crucifix, 
of another named Roanez, a woman over sixty 
by the same means, and of a third an Indian 
girl from paralysis and a passion for gambling, 
he not only changed his mind, but, like Remy, 
wrote her life three times ever, once for the 
Edifying Letters, again in Latin as a report for 
his superiors in Rome, and the third for general 
use. Other missionaries experienced similar 
favors, among them Fathers Bruyas and Morain. 
It has not been the lot of many mortals to have 
had their lives recorded by such accomplished 
biographers, Cholonec an eye witness and inti- 
mate observer, and Chauchetiere has kept her 
memory alive by brush as well as pen. It is no 
wonder then that Indians and French in Canada 
became convinced that Catharine was not only a 
saint but also favored by God. In these remark- 
able answers to prayer through her intercession, 
she was their wonder worker, their protectress, 
their Genevieve. "Canada has also her Gene- 
vieve," remarked the second bishop of Quebec, 
de la Croix St. Valier, as he rose after praying 
at the tomb of Catharine, referring no doubt to 
her protection from the savage Iroquois in 1688. 

27 



Nor is it a wonder that Father Cholonec at 
length felt justified exhuming her remains so as 
to preserve her bones sacredly in the sacristy of 
the Mission Chapel, where they are still kept, 
except the skull which was given as a source of 
blessings to the Indians of Regis when they were 
establishing their reservation. 

Catharine's tomb however, had become a holy 
place in the eyes of the Indians. They had seen 
miracles worked by the use of the soil taken 
from it, they had experienced graces as they 
prayed there, they had gone to it in pious pil- 
grimage, when their village was moved in 1696 
and again to its present site in 1716, and 
they had seen visitors coming from afar to 
venerate it. For over sixty years the his- 
torian Charlevoix attests all this had lasted, 
and it had grown into an abiding tradition. 
From time to time the great cross was renewed 
with ceremonies notably in 1843, and after a 
destructive gale again in 1884. In 1890 Father 
Clarence A. Walworth, of St. Mary's, Albany, 
erected a lasting monument on the spot, a great 
urn of granite surmounted by a high cross, 
palisaded and covered by a rustic roof. On the 
stone is inscribed, 

Kateri Tekakwitha 
April 17, 1680 
Onkweonweke Katsitsiio Leokitsianekaron 
meaning 

Fairest flower that ever bloomed among true men,, 



Though, as Cholonec wrote, the wonders 
worked by this "Little Flower" of the Indians 
became too numerous to record, there was al- 
ways one so obvious as to need no record, the 
fervor of her people after her death, their ven- 
eration for her virtues, their belief in her holi- 
ness, and their steadfast adherence to the faith 
down to our day. Their disposition to pay her 
the tribute of their worship has spread far be- 
yond their home on the St. Lawrence. Every- 
where that Christians read of her saintly life, 
there is the same impulse to venerate her, and 
to wish that one day she be honored on our 
altars. The Bishops of the United States as- 
sembled in the Plenary Council in Baltimore in 
1884 expressed this wish to the Holy Father 
when recommending the beatification of Father 
Jogues and his companions, who died for the 
faith where Catharine was born, the ripest fruit 
of their blood, since the blood of martyrs is the 
seed of Christians. 

At Auriesville, Catharine's memory is asso- 
ciated with that of Father Jogues, Joseph La- 
lande and Rene Goupil. Although she did not 
die for the Faith as they did, she lived as one 
of its confessors and she consecrated her life to 
God as virgin. The priests in charge of the 
Shrine are fortunate in the possession of a por- 
tion of her relic, kindly given to them by Rt. 
Rev. William Forbes, Bishop of Joliet, when 
pastor at Caughnawaga, the present home of the 
Indians with whom Catharine spent most of her 
life as a Christian. Many favors are attributed 
to the application of this relic. Of late espe- 

29 



cially it has been used more frequently, as there 
is at present a revival of interest in the "Lily of 
the Mohawks" as Catharine is familiarly known, 
and of the desire that she should be publicly 
venerated. Nowhere is this desire more mani- 
fest than among the thousands of pilgrims who 
visit annually her birthplace at Auriesville, 
where the Shrine of Our Lady of Martyrs now 
marks the former Mission of the Martyrs, as it 
was called after Jogues and his companions died 
there, and hallows the soil from which this Lily 
of the Mohawks sprang. 

With all who cherish her memory, who use 
her precious relics, and who above all imitate 
her virtues, we recommend the custom, dating 
from her death, of those who went to pray at 
her tomb, reciting three times the Lord's Prayer, 
the Angelical Salutation and Glory be to the 
Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. We recom- 
mend also the prayer: 

"0 God, who art wonderful in Thy Saints, we 
beseech Thee, grant the favor we beg through 
the intercession of Thy Servant Catharine, that 
she may be exalted in the Church, and that we 
may be led to imitate her virtues. Through 
Christ our Lord. Amen." 



SO 



THE PI ETA 

AT 

THE SHRINE OF OUR LADY OF MARTYRS 

AURIESVILLE. NEW YORK 



BIRTHPLACE OF KATERI TEG AKWITHA 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 


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